A new report put out by the Texas Freedom Network Education Fund reveals that in several public school classes on the impact of the Bible on history have found classes teaching from a right-wing, fundamentalist Christian standpoint.
A Southern Methodist University religious studies professor Mark Chancey found instances of students learning a literal interpretation of the Bible, that the earth is approximately 6,000 years old and that Judaism is a “flawed and incomplete religion” with materials “designed to evangelize rather than provide an objective study of the Bible’s influence.”
TFN also found a lesson explaining “racial origins traced from Noah.”
Well isn't THAT interesting. While the country celebrates the second inauguration of America's first African American President, the children in Texas are being taught that he is less than a real human being and therefore undeserving of their respect.
Courtesy of the Grio:
What we have inherited is a legacy of racism that is deeper than simple racial preferences or even basic ethnocentrism. American racism has had the aid and comfort of a theological construct perpetuated by churches that attribute racist intentions to God. This was the underpinning of American slavery, Jim Crow laws, and South African Apartheid.
You know whenever anybody asks me why I have such a problem with the Bible being used as a textbook in public school classrooms I always ask them, "Have you read it? Because if you have, then you should know."
It just seems to me that every time we take a step forward in this nation, there is some bible waving lunatic trying to drag us back into the darkness with them.
Thanks for proving my point, Gryph. These people are stuck in the Old Testament and want to take us back there, including that witch on the dead lake.
ReplyDelete....and I'm an imperfect Christian. "Sermon On The Mount," anyone?
We all know that Jeb Bush as Governor of Florida was heavily invested in pushing further the whole idea of Charter Schools etc. I also read at that time that both his mother and a brother were involved with Texas schoolbook publishing.
ReplyDeleteAnyone remember something about that? We all know that when there is money to be made, they are altogether into it. Whether is is detrimental to the education system is immaterial.
Outrageous, yes, but the keyword is "several." Most TX districts comply by continuing to teach literary allusions, some of which are Biblical, in English classes. Unfortunately the fake, potentially harmful education is often delivered in school districts where fewer students have educated parents to correct it. Fortunately (?) many of those kids don't study anyway.
ReplyDeleteTexas Freedom Network, who stays on top of these outrages, was started by Cecille Richards, Ann Richards' daughter and current president of Planned Parenthood. Texas also has best & brightest.
I hate to say this, but it's true... Nothing new here. The inferiority of certain races and nations of people has long been preached in some denominations of 'christianity'. Those attitudes were more vocal in the 50's and 60's because of the growing efforts to desegregate society by educating white and black kids together, and existing Jim Crow laws came under attack by organized civil rights groups.
ReplyDeleteThe fear expressed by racist southern politicians was that 'mongrelization' would 'bring down the white race'. The conservatives fought like hell to prevent 'mixing of the races', and they were supported by like-minded clergy of the day. I've personally researched hundreds of articles written from that era which were written in major newspapers in the South, and although there were a few dissenters, there was near unanimity in the white society that blacks were inferior, and that it was biblically supported.
I can't say that the Bible-based reasoning is emphasized today on such a broad basis today because of the fear of 'good christians' being labeled as a racist bigot, but the people who were 'raised that way' have never heard those things refuted by anyone that they admire and respect.
The Louie Gohmerts (R-TX) of the world today are the end product of that teaching. In my opinion, we can force them to be polite and respectful in certain public settings by sanctioning and ridiculing their inappropriate behavior, but we will never alter their thinking on these and similar matters. They are afraid of change. They'll just have to die off, eventually.
The real battle for civility and equality is with the generation being educated today and in the future generations This is why it's important that we continue to push for science-based curiculums to prevent the learning and re-learning of this nonsense in an academic setting with the support of public policy and funding. No one, other than a few extremists, is trying to eradicate the Christian religion nor any others. But most educated individuals recognize the dangers of the state allowing the blurring of the separation of state and religion.
Westboro Baptist Church might be considered extremists because of their protest activity, but they are using the same ' holy book' as the basis of their teachings. They are simply doing the pick and choose method of emphasizing those passages that support their idealology, and ignoring those which counter their argument. It's interesting that you never see or hear the 'christian leadership' of less extreme teachings condemn the theology of WBC, and barely a whimper regarding their methodology.
One more note: it's a popular saying in the white racist community that those of us who have empathy for people of color are said to have 'white guilt' because we acknowledge and repeat the facts of history of those days, and fight to prevent revisionism of history and sanitization of these facts by making things seem more PC but still perpetuating the same stereotypes. They might as well call us 'nigger-lovers', which is how they expressed the same sentiment before they were shamed enough to change the code words. But their feelings never dissipated, and there is still resentment about having to go underground with their overt politics of racial divide.
If society does not keep constant pressure on the states to keep religion out of public schools, the nation will keep advancing toward the showdown that the gun goons are itching to occur.
Keeping a wall of separation between matters of state and religion is not government tyranny. In my opinion, it's just common sense, because there are so many flavors of religion, there would be no way to choose one without alienating every one else. These same individuals would go crazy if madrasahs were popping up throughout the country, supported by public tax dollars. Why can't they see the issue from a slightly different perspective?
Can the Idiocracy be far behind..?
ReplyDeleteI love that movie.
DeleteHillary will be elected our next President in 2016. Then she will nominate President Obama to the Supreme Court. Then the Tea Bagger's heads will explode.
ReplyDeleteanon 8:50
DeleteI like the way your mind works and join you in what probably is wishful thinking, but so what, it's worth the effort!
That would be wonderful wouldn't it!
DeleteHopefully, however, the TPers will be a thing of the past by then time the next election rolls around :)
A grand total of 13 Embassies were under siege from massive protests on that fateful day and right wing activities such as the Koran burning by Pastor Terry Jones had cost the lives of American Service people in Afghanistan and weeklong riots across the Arab world. Scores of thousands set upon the embassies after the makers of a film decidedly aimed at causing bloodshed of Americans. The forgotten victims of the entire incident are the hundreds of locals throughout that part of the world and stretching down to Indonesia, who put their bodies between the protesters and the American Embassies this also, includes Libyans who lost their lives trying to protect the Consulate in Benghazi. The Eastern world erupted on the same day for the same reason and Republicans can’t fathom why the state department. The CIA and administration couldn’t differentiate massive protest elsewhere with the actions in Libya. The hostiles took advantage of the outrage elsewhere and nobody was none the wiser, the initial incident was over in less than 2 hours, the CIA was in an annex 2 km away and the last strike by mortars at 4 a m local time took out the 2 security contractors who were removing the last of the embassy staff. That in a world full of confusion the State Department jumped to a logical conclusion by tying in Benghazi to the half worldwide protests is logical, that republicans pretend not to know this is political and shameless political grandstanding, trading on tragedy.
ReplyDeleteRand Paul is a possible 2016 Republican Presidential Candidate? Wow. You can't get much lower in the barrel than that.
ReplyDeleteGot get 'em, Hillary.
The GOP: always out for blood over the most trivial things, which they blow up into much ado about nothing. This is to cover for their own incompetence and do-nothing agenda.
ReplyDeleteThat's Mrs. President to you, ex-Senator Johnson.
ReplyDeleteIt is very obvious that the main goal of this Committe is not to figure out what went wrong in Benghazi and use that info to prevent future attacks(as if that is really entirely possible).
ReplyDeleteThey main goal is to publicly attack and attempt to belittle Mrs Clinton for several reason. The main one probably a vain attempt to taint her image if she does run for POTUS in 2016.
The fact that 2 newly appointed committe members are themselves contenders for the 2016 race makes is so blatantly obvious it is shameful.
I loved the 'if I was president...' statement.
DeleteLet's try running the country first, and seeing first hand how hard Hillary works for her country before making such offensive low blows.
The republicans sole purpose during Secretary of State's testimony is to attempt to discredit her for the 2016 elections.....It is so pathetically obvious......
ReplyDeletePoor GOTPers... Emasculated by the current president in two elections and emasculated by the future president in the upcoming two elections.
ReplyDelete"Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) rebuked Paul in the next exchange. 'If some people on this committee want to call this tragedy the worst since 9/11, it misunderstands the nature of 4000 plus Americans lost in the War in Iraq under false pretenses'."
ReplyDeleteThank you, sir.
Repubs are terrified of Hillary's chances in the next elections which is why they are predictably running this little obstacle course.
ReplyDelete"This inquisition is sponsored in part by Fox News and Friends."
ReplyDeleteHe sure needs to be knocked down a peg or two. Who does he think he is talking to Hillary Clinton with such disrespect?
ReplyDeleteDream on Rand Paul. Dream on. That's as close as you'll ever get to the presidency.
Keep on whining and behaving like a spoiled brat Mr. Paul. Because of your attitude and total lack of respect for Mrs. Clinton and the entire process, we, the people, will NEVER elect you president.
ReplyDeleteExactly how is the U.S. supposed to compete in a world economy if we teach our children this drivel?
ReplyDeleteI'll bet the same m0r0ns that are forcing schools to teach this crap are the same ones complaining that our student test scores aren't competitive with students in other countries. No shit!
I'm surprised we're only ranked 37th in the world in education. If this Texas hokum spreads, we'll be sinking fast.
The Texan school board frame of mind has been spreading. They are the largest buying of text books in the country, and as such, the book publishers look to what books and learning materials Texas will be using in their curriculums and offering those to the other states across the country.
DeleteIt's quite sad really.
Just wait until the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, Sikh, Druid communities demand equal time. Public schools are financed by their tax dollars, too.
ReplyDeleteMy freshman year of college I took 'Literature of Antiquity'
ReplyDeleteI went to a State University of New York, which is obviously a public institution.
In that class, we read parts of the new and old testament, and the qur'an in addition to Greek and roman texts.
On the first day of class as we were goin over the syllabus, our professor told us he didn't care what our religious beliefs were or lack thereof, we would be going over these holy scriptures in a literary fashion and, as college students, we were old enough to not be offended when he states that these holy books contradict most everything we know about ancient history which was learned through proven scientific processes and archeological discoveries.
We could believe in whatever we wanted, that that was a right we had as Americans, but when we were in his classroom, the holy books no longer held the answers to life, the universe and everything, rather they collections of stories put together by those who were trying to make sense of a world during ignorant times.